COMMENT: Apple Masters At Sucking In Status Symbol Consumers

Apple are the master show stoppers and their event in the USA today sucked in the faithful and gave all those people who forked out over the top prices for their new iPhones and Apple Watches last year another reason to part with their cash.

This is what smart business is all about and the hundreds of billions that Apple has in the bank, is testimony to the skill that Apple management are able to deliver when it comes to bleeding brand status consumers of their money.

If Apple is to stay a trillion dollar Company Apple they must squeeze more money out of its existing customers, they are betting it can persuade enough customers to buy a new device to improve on the 17% increase in iPhone revenue to $164.66 billion that analysts predict it will deliver in the fiscal year ending in September, as the iPhone X’s nearly $1,499 price tag offset flat unit sales.

But is what they are offering a better alternative to what Samsung delivers?

I have to be honest I prefer an Android platform to an Apple proprietary iOS platform which Steve Jobs designed to suck money out of Apple customers and guess what, his strategy has worked and is still working today.

An estimated 254 million consumers use iPhones that are more than three years old and 486 million use iPhones that are more than two years old, according to analysts Piper Jaffray.

The only difference is that today’s Apple management have refined and improved the way that they strip money out of consumers’ pockets and it works.

Retailers love and so do the developers who make millions selling Apple Apps the music and the movie content.

Earlier today in the US Apple unveiled its biggest and most expensive iPhone line-up ever, making a bet that larger screens can persuade millions of iPhone owners to not only upgrade to a new device but also fork over more money than they spent in past years.

You have to give it to Apple they have seriously created a status symbol with their customer base who are so sucked into the Apple brand that they cannot be seen with an Apple product unless it is the latest model.

These are posers who like to flaunt status symbols and it is delivering billions to Apple’s bottom line. Even Samsung benefits because they build a lot of the components found in the new iPhones.

Like Samsung did with their new Galaxy Note 9 the outside of the latest iPhones look similar to past models, even though the display screens are larger.

Apple has sought to enliven its flagship device with standard improvements like speedier processors and longer-lasting batteries while also touting innovative features like photo-editing tools and new haptic-touch technology.

To get access to this technology Australian Apple iPhone fans are going to have to fork out up to $1,799 which is a big jump in price. Apple’s highest-priced phone is now the iPhone XS Max, priced at $1,799, a plus-size, 6.5-inch version of last year’s anniversary model.

Apple also unveiled a new smartwatch with an edge-to-edge screen that is 30% larger than previous models, along with sensors that could help elbow Apple into the cardiac-monitoring market.

The Apple Watch Series 4 comes with an electrical sensor that gives the device electrocardiogram, or ECG, capabilities to measure a heart’s electrical current in 30 seconds. It is the first of the company’s smartwatches to win Food and Drug Administration clearance, showing the notoriously secretive company is willing to work with regulators as it pushes into the health industry.

At today’s event CEO Tim Cook and other executives kept the focus solely on the smartwatch and the iPhone, there was no new Mac computers, iPads or Air Pod wireless headphones, there was also no sound system upgrade.

Will Apple succeed in 2018/2019 to improve revenues?

“It will be hard to beat, but they are throwing more at it with a big display increase that will raise the sexiness of the best phone they offer,” said Patrick Moorhead, president of the technology research firm Moor Insights & Strategy.

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street, Journalist He wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner. for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media Company and prior to that the third largest PR Company that became the foundation Company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.